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Insult to injury; lack of progress; gone fishing; and other highlights of recent tax cases.Los Angeles: Christopher Kazuo Kamon, former longtime head of the accounting department at a now-shuttered personal injury law firm, has been sentenced to 10 years and a month in prison for enabling the embezzlement of millions of dollars from the firm’s clients and for embezzling money from the firm itself.Kamon, formerly of Encino and Palos Verdes, California, and who was residing in the Bahamas at the time of his November 2022 arrest, was also ordered to pay $8,903,324 in restitution. He pleaded guilty in October.From 2004…

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board chair Erica Williams told Accounting Today that the role played by the PCAOB can’t simply be “cut and pasted” into the Securities and Exchange Commission after the House Financial Services Committee approved legislation that would effectively shutter the audit overseer.Speaking on the sidelines of Baruch College’s annual financial reporting conference in New York on Thursday, the day after Republicans on the committee voted to advance the bill, Williams declined to speculate on what would happen in the event of a transition of the PCAOB’s duties to the SEC. “I will say that I think that…

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. The contentious 150-hour rule — the number of college credit hours required to sit the CPA exam — has been a sticking point in the profession since it became the standard in the 1990s. With an ongoing talent crisis, uncompetitive salaries and rising education costs further weakening the inflow of new professionals, is the end of the rule the first step to changing the tide?Median annual salaries for entry-level accountants hover around $65,000, according to 2024 research by Accounting Today. It’s not until the managerial tier that…

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Tax season has wrapped up, and this year there were increases in almost every filing statistic category compared to 2024.  According to data from the Internal Revenue Service, the number of returns filed as of April 18, 2025 (the latest figures available), was up from last year by 1.1%, with 140,633,000 returns received. The IRS processed 138,057,000 of these returns, up 1.5% from 2024.Read more: IRS marks Tax Day amid layoffs, cutbacks This year, the number of refunds was about the same as 2024, at 86,021,000. The total amount…

Audit regulators are increasing their focus on how group auditors identify, engage and supervise component auditors, sparking important discussions about effectiveness, practicality and unintended consequences.Is this level of scrutiny necessary for all group audits, or should regulators take a risk-based approach? Are auditors spending too much time on reporting instead of enhancing audit quality? And with AI reshaping audit methodologies, why aren’t auditors leveraging real-time analytics to ensure they engage the right component auditors for high-risk areas?These aren’t just compliance questions — they challenge the future of global audits, the role of technology and the balance between oversight and efficiency.The…

President Trump describes his administration’s sweeping new tariffs on other countries as a tool for accomplishing a range of key economic goals, including reviving U.S. manufacturing. Recently, he’s been highlighting another aim: lowering, or even eliminating, individual income taxes for most Americans. “When Tariffs cut in, many people’s Income Taxes will be substantially reduced, maybe even completely eliminated. Focus will be on people making less than $200,000 a year,” he wrote Sunday on Truth Social, his social media app. Tariffs are already kicking in, with businesses around the country facing import duties of 145% or more on imports from China and tariffs…

The Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission, in collaboration with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, have introduced the COSO Fraud Risk Management Certificate program. The new certification, offered through the Institute of Internal Auditors and the Institute of Management Accountants in addition to the ACFE, aims to help professionals enhance their expertise in fraud risk management. COSO is jointly sponsored by the IIA and the IMA, along with the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of CPAs and Financial Executives International.  FraudAlex/Getty Images/iStockphoto The certificate program builds on the Fraud Risk Management Guide that COSO first introduced in…

The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a proposed accounting standards update Wednesday offering guidance for debt exchange transactions involving multiple creditors.  The proposed ASU stems from a recommendation of FASB’s Emerging Issues Task Force. Under the current rules, when an entity modifies an existing debt instrument or exchanges debt instruments, it’s required to determine whether the transaction should be accounted for as (1) a modification of the existing debt obligation or (2) the issuance of a new debt obligation and an extinguishment of the existing debt obligation (with certain exceptions).The proposed update would specify that an exchange of debt instruments that meets…

Republican lawmakers pushing for the expansion of the state and local tax deduction in President Donald Trump’s economic package are slated to meet with House Speaker Mike Johnson to get specific about how much to increase the $10,000 cap on the write-off. The meeting, set for Wednesday afternoon, comes as Republicans are beginning to craft the tax cuts and spending reductions they plan to pass in the coming months.Representative Young Kim, a California Republican, said that Republicans “are still in negotiation” on how high to increase the dollar-limit on SALT deductions.Yet the meeting may be one of the most detail-oriented yet…

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the European Union has some “internal matters” to sort out before the bloc can enter into trade negotiations with the U.S., singling out a tax on digital services levied by some countries.”We’re negotiating with a lot of different interests,” Bessent said Tuesday during a briefing at the White House. “Some of the European countries have put on an unfair digital service tax” on the U.S., he said.The U.S. has for years objected to moves by foreign countries that multiple administrations have argued unfairly target American technology giants like Amazon.com Inc. and Google owner Alphabet Inc.…